Advisor/Sr. Advisor - Automation Scientist, Discovery Oncology

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.

Advisor/Sr. Advisor - Automation Scientist, Discovery Oncology

Summary

We're looking for an Advisor/Senior Advisor of Automation Science to own the scientific integrity of everything that runs on our automated platform. While our engineering team owns how the automation works, you'll own whether it's producing the right science — translating experimental requirements into automation-compatible workflows, setting validation and QC standards, and being the person engineers and scientists both turn to when an automated result doesn't look right and no one's sure yet whether it's a science problem or a systems problem. This is a role for someone who's genuinely energized by sitting at the intersection of bench science and engineering.

This position reports to the AVP - Automation, Discovery Oncology and is onsite in NYC.

Responsibilities

• Own the scientific design and validation of workflows before and after they're automated — defining what "correct" looks like for a given assay or screen, and what controls and QC criteria are needed to trust automated output
• Serve as the primary scientific reviewer for new automated workflows prior to production rollout, partnering closely with automation engineers on translating experimental requirements into automation-friendly steps
• Lead scientific root-cause investigations when automated results are unexpected — distinguishing genuine biological/chemical signal from instrument, software, or protocol-design issues, and partnering with engineering on fixes when it's the latter
• Set platform-wide standards for assay validation, controls, and data quality criteria across automated workflows, in partnership with the AVP
• Along with other Automation Team members, design and build user-facing tools (UIs, dashboards, CLIs, or AI-assisted interfaces) that let scientists configure, launch, monitor, and troubleshoot automated runs without them needing to understand the underlying instrument control code

• Partner with automation engineers, data engineering and informatics teams to ensure automation platforms capture data that supports accurate downstream scientific interpretation.

• Evaluate new assay technologies, screening approaches, and scientific methods for automation feasibility, and advise engineering on what a given method will require from the platform
• Provide scientific mentorship to other scientists and engineers working on automated workflows, without formal management responsibility for them

About you

• You enjoy working with both scientists and engineers, and you're comfortable being the scientific conscience in a room full of systems thinkers, or vice versa
• You have a solid understanding of data processing pipelines — not to build them yourself, but to know what "clean, trustworthy data" needs to look like coming out of an automated system
• You've partnered on or influenced the design of tools (dashboards, QC interfaces, automated flagging) that help scientists trust and interpret automated results, even if engineers built the tooling itself. You are interested in learning to build these types of tools yourself.
• You default to asking "is this scientifically sound" before "is this technically elegant," and you're comfortable pushing back on an engineering solution that gets the science wrong

Basic Qualifications

• PhD +2 years experience in a relevant scientific discipline (e.g. cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, pharmacology) with equivalent experience OR;
• MS +8 years experience in a relevant scientific discipline (e.g. cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, pharmacology) with equivalent experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience designing, validating, or troubleshooting assays and workflows on automated/high-throughput platforms
• Strong understanding of experimental design, controls, and statistical validity as applied to high-throughput and automated screening
• Comfort partnering closely with engineers on translating experimental requirements into automatable steps, without needing to write the automation code yourself
• Working knowledge of how lab data flows into downstream data processing and analysis pipelines
• Strong cross-functional communication skills; able to represent scientific rationale to both technical and leadership audiences
• Experience mentoring scientists or providing scientific guidance on cross-functional technical projects
• Background in oncology, cell biology, or HTS
• Experience with and understanding of automation scheduling software (Cellario, Momentum, GBG, etc)
• Basic scripting or data analysis skills (Python, R, or similar) sufficient to independently explore automation-generated data
• Experience evaluating or piloting new assay technologies for platform fit

Work Environment

• This is an onsite position (5 days) in New York, NY

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Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia (AMECA), Black Employees at Lilly (BE@Lilly), Chinese Culture Network (CCN), EnAble, Evolve, Lilly Indian Network (LIN), Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), Pride (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN) and Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL).

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location. The anticipated wage for this position is

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

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